Why the Pandemic Is So Bad in America (theatlantic.com) 542
A virus has brought the world's most powerful country to its knees. From a report: A pandemic can be prevented in two ways: Stop an infection from ever arising, or stop an infection from becoming thousands more. The first way is likely impossible. There are simply too many viruses and too many animals that harbor them. Bats alone could host thousands of unknown coronaviruses; in some Chinese caves, one out of every 20 bats is infected. Many people live near these caves, shelter in them, or collect guano from them for fertilizer. Thousands of bats also fly over these people's villages and roost in their homes, creating opportunities for the bats' viral stowaways to spill over into human hosts. Based on antibody testing in rural parts of China, Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that studies emerging diseases, estimates that such viruses infect a substantial number of people every year. "Most infected people don't know about it, and most of the viruses aren't transmissible," Daszak says. But it takes just one transmissible virus to start a pandemic.
Sometime in late 2019, the wrong virus left a bat and ended up, perhaps via an intermediate host, in a human -- and another, and another. Eventually it found its way to the Huanan seafood market, and jumped into dozens of new hosts in an explosive super-spreading event. The COVID-19 pandemic had begun. [...] Being prepared means being ready to spring into action, "so that when something like this happens, you're moving quickly," Ronald Klain, who coordinated the U.S. response to the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014, told me. "By early February, we should have triggered a series of actions, precisely zero of which were taken." Trump could have spent those crucial early weeks mass-producing tests to detect the virus, asking companies to manufacture protective equipment and ventilators, and otherwise steeling the nation for the worst. Instead, he focused on the border. On January 31, Trump announced that the U.S. would bar entry to foreigners who had recently been in China, and urged Americans to avoid going there.
Sometime in late 2019, the wrong virus left a bat and ended up, perhaps via an intermediate host, in a human -- and another, and another. Eventually it found its way to the Huanan seafood market, and jumped into dozens of new hosts in an explosive super-spreading event. The COVID-19 pandemic had begun. [...] Being prepared means being ready to spring into action, "so that when something like this happens, you're moving quickly," Ronald Klain, who coordinated the U.S. response to the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014, told me. "By early February, we should have triggered a series of actions, precisely zero of which were taken." Trump could have spent those crucial early weeks mass-producing tests to detect the virus, asking companies to manufacture protective equipment and ventilators, and otherwise steeling the nation for the worst. Instead, he focused on the border. On January 31, Trump announced that the U.S. would bar entry to foreigners who had recently been in China, and urged Americans to avoid going there.
One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Informative)
January20: "I know more about viruses than anyone."
January 22: "We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China. It's going to be just fine."
February 2: "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."
February 24: "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA... Stock Market starting to look very good to me!"
February 25: "CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus."
February 25: "I think that's a problem that's going to go away... They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we're very close to a vaccine."
February 26: "The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero."
February 26: "We're going very substantially down, not up."
February 27: "One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear."
February 28: "We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical."
March 2: "You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?"
March 2: "A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they're happening very rapidly."
March 4: "If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work â" some of them go to work, but they get better."
March 5: "I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work."
March 5: "The United States has, as of now, only 129 cases and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!"
March 6: "I think we're doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down⦠a tremendous job at keeping it down."
March 6: "Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They're there. And the tests are beautiful... the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good."
March 6: "I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it... Every one of these doctors said, 'How do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president."
March 6: "I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault."
March 8: "We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus."
March 9: "This blindsided the world."
March 13: "National emergency, two big words."
March 13: "When you compare what we've done to other areas of the world, it's pretty incredible."
March 13: "Five million (tests) within a month... I doubt we'll need anything near that."
March 13: "I don't take responsibility at all."
March 14. "It's something that nobody expected⦠it's one of those things that happened. It's nobody's fault."
March 15: "This is a very contagious virus. It's incredible. But it's something that we have tremendous control over"
March 17: "I have always known this is a real, this is a pandemic. I've felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic... I've always viewed it as very serious."
March 19: "If we had an honest media in this country, our country would be an even greater place."
March 19: "It could have been stopped, could have been stopped pretty easily if we had known, if everybody had known about it... Nobody knew there'd be a pandemic... of this proportion."
March 25: "Nobody could have ever seen something like this coming."
March 25: "It's hard not be happy with the job we're doing, that I can tell you."
March 26: "I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they'll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they're saying, 'Can we order 30,000 ventilators?"
March 26: "It can't be managed by the federal government."
March 27: "We've had great success over the past month."
March 27: "You can call it a germ. You can call it a flu. You can call it a virus.... I'm not sure anybody even knows what it is."
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think coronavirus is a joke and a massive overreaction however that list is pretty funny.
So 150,000+ deaths is funny to you? You must be great at parties or concentration camps.
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Informative)
Left unchecked, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is forecast to kill approximately 2 million Americans.
Personally, I think that's sufficient reason to treat it with the care it deserves.
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:4, Interesting)
The evidence shows that if anything, that number is undercounting COVID-19 deaths.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/new... [umn.edu]
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/... [cdc.gov]
Re: One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, at least in the US, itâ(TM)s a political discussion. Not a scientific one.
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It seems like trolling because we actually do know the cause of most of the deaths around lockdowns. We can see that the majority were caused by Covid-19 and that there were reductions in deaths from other causes like road accidents. There are also increases in such causes such as heart attacks which are an indirect effect of the lockdown but UK research shows that a large amount of this is due to people choosing not to visit hospitals due to fear, so it's not due to conscious actions from the authorities
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True. If it was a scientific one, it probably wouldn't have even shown up on slashdot these days.
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Insightful)
The death rate relative to the number of people infected is either right in line with or slightly lower than most other countries with first-world medical systems (3.3% here, 3.3% France, 3.8% Germany). So if the high number of fatalities is higher than reality, then that would also require that the total number of infected must also be proportionately higher than reality, which seems extremely unlikely to be the case, given that they are mostly independently reported by different organizations through different channels. (Most testing is not done at hospitals, for example.)
No, it's far more likely that our total number of deaths is correct, and that the reason that our number of deaths per capita is so high is that people need to stop being idiots and start taking the virus seriously.
I never thought that the Trump fanboy syndrome would sway people to commit suicide en masse by not wearing masks, not practicing safe physical distancing, and going on as if nothing is wrong out of a true belief that the virus is just a plot by the Democrats to get the most ineffectual leader in our nation's history out of office, yet here we are.
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Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, I don't believe the 150k number. The US probably isn't doing well. But that much worse population-wise vs every other country? Hardly believable. We have a better medical system, we have a relatively healthy population. We are technically advanced enough to perform lots of remote work. We can sustain hardships better than most, since we have more money and our economy can absorb A LOT.
Another example of the American "fairy dust" attitude where results aren't related to specific actions, but just to "being American".
"The results can't be real" not because the USA took appropriate action but because "we're American and thus tawdry things like disease don't happen to us".
America has a *ton* of advantages, some of which you list. Sadly, they aren't all that useful (although they mitigate a little) if you don't manage the basics on how to control a highly contagious disease. And to be honest America *did* do a lot of lockdown. However, simply looking at the evidence, it wasn't enough to prevent the epidemic from growing.
Now, a debate can be had - better that people die than endure what might be necessary to actually defeat the virus. I'm cold-blooded enough to be able to argue both sides. But the idea of pretending that the facts on the ground don't exist in order to support one's case - that's obscene. Acknowledge the costs of one's policy, whether it be a huge number of deaths or crushing debt. But don't pretend that the costs don't exist.
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather, I think the anecdotal evidence of mis-classifying deaths as COVID deaths was more the issue. We encouraged hospitals to report covid deaths with direct cash incentives, at a time when we starved them of their customer base. It was a recipe for disaster.
For all the skeptics out there... just consider the "excess mortality" or the number of deaths versus last year. There currently are around 30% excess deaths even after correcting for COVID in 2020. So if anything there has been an under-reporting of COVID related deaths.
Why? Because the worse it is, the worse Trump's chances are for re-election. I never thought the trump derangement syndrome would sway people to place their hatred of the man above their love of their own country, yet here we are.
Oh Bullshit. There are currently 10's of thousands of people dead because Trump was grossly inadequate for the job. There are good reasons to despise the man and his governing from the gut and continuous lying and preening his ego while people die. It is in fact the blind Trump supporter who are currently placing their worship of Trump above love of country, our traditions and their fellow American.
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We have a better medical system, we have a relatively healthy population.
The US health system beats almost every other in terms of cost. In a tiny number of instances, that cost is driven by bleeding edge technological advances, eg neuromodulation. But largely it's just about much higher costs for treatments that readily available everywhere, plus tons more acute activity because you have no preventative or public health or primary care to speak of. Which is why the US population is actually less healthy than virtually every other developed economy.
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Lastly, lets not forget how political it has become. Half the country is left-leaning uber "shut it down, don't go back to school, wear a mask even if you are alone in your car" authoritarian, while the other half is "I don't care or I don't believe it" right conservative. Why? Because the worse it is, the worse Trump's chances are for re-election. I never thought the trump derangement syndrome would sway people to place their hatred of the man above their love of their own country, yet here we are.
The worse what is? The Economy crashing ala democrats? Or the mass suicide of voters and spread of an infectious disease ala Republicans?
You say it's political, but it seems both sides of politics have a common goal and that goal is to make Trump look like a moron.
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Insightful)
Assertion: "So far USA is on track to match 2017 flu death numbers" ...
Actual data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
2017-18 flu fatalities (12 months) - 61K
2020 YTD flu fatalities (5 months) - currently 158K
Conclusion: you keep using those words ... I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Informative)
We've blown way past last year's flu deaths, if you use the same methodology of counting. The problem is that flu deaths are estimated, based upon a ratio of known deaths versus deaths not reported but likely due to the flu, and flu deaths are not routinely reported to the CDC. Whereas with Covid-19 we count only those deaths are are directly reported as being due to covid-19. Two completely different ways of counting.
Here, have a look:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/... [cdc.gov]
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.or... [hopkinsmedicine.org]
That estimates 24,000 to 62,000 flu deaths for the 2019/2020 flu season. That's estimated high, well above the actual number of counted cases which is closer to 16 thousand. Whereas with counted covid-19 deaths so far we have over 150,000 deaths.
Covid-19 has shot past that flu deaths number and it doesn't show signs of slowing down. Covid-19 is absolutely deadlier than the flu.
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a communicable disease.
Not a communicable disease (HPV notwithstanding)
Not a communicable disease.
3x the deaths in half the time. When are you people going to let this loser of a talking point go? 200K, 250K? Gimme a number.
Not a communicable disease.
We did for 3K deaths due to some airplanes striking the Twin Towers. The number of deaths per day of shutdown is actually higher for COVID.
Yeah, but I plan to survive for longer than you and move on from your dukmbass preventable death [npr.org].
He did answer the question (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, this sort of recklessness is catching on elsewhere and I suspect that soon America will not be the only country facing an out-of-control surge of cases. Like Covid-19, it appears that stupidity is a communicable disease but in some ways it is far more dangerous since it can spread through the internet.
Re:He did answer the question (Score:5, Informative)
They've had mass protests in Berlin a couple of days ago too so it's definitely spreading.
That said I think the situation in America is quite special (although not completely unique, looking at you Brazil). It's just a perfect storm of a bunch of stuff:
This could be an opportunity to improve all of these to better handle the next pandemic (and just in general) but the current leadership will happily double down and keep claiming how everything was perfect.
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should it matter if it is communicable?
Exponentials, dear boy.
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And only 2% have caught it.
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My eulogy for you. Thank you for writing it.
You haven 't been told to stay in your home and not leave now.
Asked and answered.
Because if cancer and heart disease combined become 1/3rd as deadly due to people following your advice (~2 million deaths
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:4, Informative)
Tool? You are spouting propaganda for the medical industry which is making billions and accomplishing almost nothing that we didn't have 1000 years ago. Clean you body and eat clean food and you will accomplish almost the same thing with billions in your pocket.
That is completely untrue. Check out the life expectancy from 1000 years ago. [sarahwoodbury.com]
Archaeological evidence indicates that Anglo-Saxons back in the Early Middle Ages (400 to 1000 A.D.) lived short lives and were buried in cemeteries, much like Englishmen today. Field workers unearthed 65 burials (400 to 1000 A.D.) from Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in England and found none who lived past 45. This site and this site has similar statistics.
Kings did better. The mean life expectancy of kings of Scotland and England, reigning from 1000 A.D. to 1600 A.D. were 51 and 48 years, respectively. Their monks did not fare as well. In the Carmelite Abbey, only five percent survived past 45. This site says wealthier people would have a life expectancy of more than forty years.
So if you were absolutely rich, you could make it to 51.
We do much better now, not to mention the massively improved infant mortality numbers and childbirth is also a lot less dangerous for the mother.
Poor hungry troll! (Score:5, Informative)
we were never told to literally stay in our homes and not leave.
Because SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that didn't even exist in humans one year ago.
Thus we don't have much at our disposal.
Keeping people out of each-others' coughs/sneezes/spittle is about the only tool we have at our disposal.
And it's still something, because we still managed to slow down the rate of death (at least here around among european countries, for now, because enough people decided to temporarily reduce a little bit their personnal comfort until case drop low enough)
Cancer and heart disease combined are currently 8 times more deadly.
Which is also why we're doing things against them too.
(e.g.: prevention and information campaigns about obesity and other cardio-vascular risks. Though yes, in your crazy country some SJW might complain that this is "fat shaming").
Same with the other disease you listed: influenza.
People aren't just sitting twindling thumbs. Except we have better tools against Influenza: we have vaccine that help reduce the spear of the epidemics by increasing the immunity.
Why should it matter if it is communicable?
Because if one personne causes two people to get infected.
Then two will infect four.
Four will infect Eight.
etc.
It grows exponentially.
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:4, Insightful)
We know how to deal with it. There are just so many people who refuse to do it.
Available methods (Score:3)
The irony here is that we don't actually know how to deal with infections, otherwise we wouldn't be in the situation we are in now.
Well that depends.
Ways to deal with an infection:
- drugs: well, indeed against a virus that didn't even exist in human one year ago, we don't have any efficient yet. So for this specific subpoint, you're right.
- vaccines: we aren't there yet, though several candidate have reached phase III.
- blocking transmission : it's a respiratory virus. we know how these are transmitted. "All" you need to do is keep people out of reach of each other's coughs/sneezes/spittle. With approach like working from home, avoidin
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Informative)
Coronavirus has been around since the 1960s.
It changes just like the flu and is only slightly more deadly.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronaviru... [cdc.gov]
You do not even know that this is a whole diverse _family_ of viruses? Fascinating. Arrogant, dumb _and_ uninformed.
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Informative)
And yes, Coronaviridae are usually genetically highly variable.
Some Coronavirus strains just cause a common cold (other virus strains causing a common cold belong for instance to the Rhinovirus and Adenovirus groups). Some strains are quite deadly, like MERS-CoV or SARS-CoV(-1). But SARS-CoV-2 is not just deadly, but highly infectious. While MERS and SARS fizzled out quite fast, CoViD-19 does not, but keeps infecting new people. And the dead rate is much higher than for the Flu.
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Whilst there's obviously not a huge amount of research funding to study viruses that make up a small percent of common colds, what evidence there is suggests some of the other human coronaviruses are much more similar to this one than you'd expect - including the parts where they likely cause Kawasaki syndrome (a rare inflammation of blood vessels in kids) and are astoundingly deadly to older people. This is just really obscure, doesn't make news headlines, and I don't think has received much in the way of
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Informative)
Every day there is new evidence on how this virus causes long term damage to critical parts of your body. Stuff you kind of need like your heart and lungs.
https://www.usnews.com/news/he... [usnews.com]
So if you do recover the damage is already done.
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Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Informative)
Right now, after six months, COVID-19 has killed more Americans than shootings, motor vehicle accidents, and overdoses COMBINED kill in an entire year.. More Americans died of COVID-19 in six months than died in motor vehicle accidents since 2015.
More Americans died from COVID-19 in the past six months than there were US military deaths in any entire year of WWII.
More Americans have died from COVID-19 in six months than Union soldiers' deaths in any year of the Civil War.
More than the entire Vietnam War plus the entire Korean War plus the entire Iraq War plus the entire Afghanistan War. And we are now on pace to make COVID-19 the third leading cause of deaths in the United States by the end of the year.
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It's because people are too lazy to think. They're rather have a politician give them talking points that they can recite. Having a script makes it much easier to not do a lot of thinking.
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2,977 died on September 11, 2001.
The current 7-day moving average is around 1000/day. That's a 9/11 every 3 days.
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We fixed a lot of heart disease by reducing the number of people who smoke.
Most of the rest (and virtually all the type 2 diabetes) we could substantially delay or fix by giving up sugar and carbs.
But people will still die of something.
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650k die per year from heart disease.
600k from cancer.
170k from accidents.
The reason this is a faulty comparison (vs. Coronavirus) is quite simple: heart disease, cancer, and accidents are not infectious diseases, and do not spread exponentially. Perhaps only 150,000 people have died from Coronavirus in the US so far, but we've only been dealing with this for about six months, and the relationship of deaths to time is most assuredly NOT linear.
Pointing out other causes of death that do not spread like Coronavirus is dishonest, at best.
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No. I'm simply saying that those that were so upset about the deaths involved in 9/11 should not be dismissive of the deaths caused by Covid 19.
A fact that still holds true independent of the fact that one was caused by a violent attack and another by a natural tragedy that could have been drastically mitigated by taking proper precautions. (Or even just being honest about the extent of it).
Too late. (Score:5, Informative)
Closing the USA to China was criticized as racist. In hindsight, travel should have been further restricted.
Nope. That is pretty stupid.
Because all it did take is a few people who contracted it elsewhere (see european having it caught imported from Asia) and those people moving unrestricted in to the USA.
In COVID-19 peculiar case it's even worse, because a lot of people transmit is unwittingly, either because they don't have any symptoms yet, or they are among the ~1/3 of people who will never get symptoms to begin with: they go on with their lives without knowing they are contributing the spread.
The only measure that would have worked is mandatory quarantine for incoming people (instead of selectively closing to a random selection of countries, because that would just encourage people to transit through a non-blocked country) with the option of getting tested to break quarantine earlier.
But thinking that by just closing a few select countries in march you'd somewhat contain the problem and avoid people coming through other countries, is pretty dumb.
Phylogenetics analysis of the virus (e.g.: the work done by our colleagues at Nextstrain) suggest that there was already transmission and travel much early that when a traval ban was considered. Closing China would have been why too late by then.
It is appropriate to compare with traffic deaths and heart disease to find that, despite constant media coverage, there are bigger and more persistent killers.
keep in mind that:
- the current death count is AFTER taking measures (various levels of locking down depending on countries). If we didn't pay attention to the epidemic, the situation would have been much worse.
- we do thinks to reduce traffic deaths (e.g.: mandatory safety belts), and we should do things against SARS-CoV-2. But because it's a virus that didn't even exist in humans one year ago, we can't do much beyond trying to keep people out of eachother's range for coughs/sneezes/spittle.
But I agree with you that we should panic and give into mass hysteria.
We should simply stay alert, and apply the recommended measure to slow down progression.
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The only measure that would have worked is mandatory quarantine for incoming people (instead of selectively closing to a random selection of countries, because that would just encourage people to transit through a non-blocked country) with the option of getting tested to break quarantine earlier.
I totally agree, but even travel from China was only partly closed. If you were a US citizen or permanent resident, you could still come into the US with no screening or quarantine. I know because a few people at my office did just that.
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It might prove interesting to see what they were saying to along the same times...
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:5, Informative)
Does anyone have a comparable WHO timeline like the above from Trump?
It might prove interesting to see what they were saying to along the same times...
sure, it's all there, has been all the time since january 2019:
https://www.who.int/emergencie... [who.int]
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll repeat my comment from the other day.
Almost as if they based their recommendations on the available information at the time. Hard to know how contagious something is without trials and studies (you know science) so before any studies were done all the evidence was anecdotal.
well, it's still as false as the other day.
if anything because there were notorious precedents in asia and europe, where measures had even already been taken and proven effective. simply denying at the time the possibility that such could and would occur in the us is not "lack of trials and studies", it's either stupidity or malice.
Re:One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh good, so he didn't say anything that he didn't evidence for, and he changed his tune once there was evidence. Was I supposed to think he's untrustworthy?
Or how about the fact that he stopped downplaying the pandemic in March, while his boss (yes, his boss) is still treating the virus like a conspiracy? Was I supposed to think better of Trump because of that?
I can tell you why without reading the article (Score:5, Insightful)
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We've got too many dumbasses in this country.
You are very correct.
What makes it worse are the following:
Hubris of the general American public. In other words, the thinking, those diseases do not happen here. They happen in those other "less developed countries."
Many Americans are chronically ill. Once COVID vists them , they cannot survive.
The [terrible] American healthcare system - I heard of a COVID-19 test that was billed US$4,321 to an insurance company. A fella, when advised of the cost of about US$200, simply went home - infecting 3 members o
They bill you when you leave [Re:I can tell you... (Score:3)
Interesting because there is no charge upon entry for emergency rooms in the US.
Correct. They bill you when you leave.
And yes, they do bill you.
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USA, home of the flat earthers, anti vaccine brigade, and jesus welcome wagon.
Re:I can tell you why without reading the article (Score:4, Insightful)
We've got too many dumbasses in this country.
It's less of the fact that they are dumb (there are dumb people everywhere) and more that they subscribe to anti-intellectualism. With "entertainment" sources (Fox News etc) reinforcing that experts cannot be trusted for anything and then providing a false (and preferable/comforting) narrative. Unfortunately, people become so consumed by it that they reject evidence to the contrary and many get to the point of full blown delusion.
People who reach the point of delusion are then easy marks for individuals pushing conspiracy theories because they are rejecting conflicting evidence in it's entirety.
When we allowed opinion to be touted as fact and criticized people touting facts by calling them partisan, we began following a downward spiral to this point.
Re:I can tell you why without reading the article (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the "experts" themselves have become corrupted. You can find an expert to support whatever opinion you might have.
We live in a post-integrity world, where the only thing folks have to rely on is their common sense.
And now you see the problem.
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No, not everyone the media calls an expert is an expert. You shouldn't believe everything you read.
One of these articles (Score:2)
which will be written in the comments at about 95%.
Mostly because our leaders blew it off as a non-op (Score:5, Insightful)
The administration should have taken it seriously and devoted resources into stopping the spread. Even something as a simple as mandating masks and social distancing back in February would have slowed the spread and contained it. But, they chose to spin it as a personal attack against them and fought tooth and nail against imposing very reasonable measure to control the spread. They continue to do so to this day.
Re:Mostly because our leaders blew it off as a non (Score:5, Insightful)
Right here today, we have an administration that is urging all parents to send their little vectors to school to vector together for 6-7 hours and bring home whatever they might encounter.
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It is not the government's job to protect you from yourself
There are however heaps of laws to protect other people from me being an idiot, an asshole, or a criminal, and to protect me from you being that idiot/asshole/criminal.
Traffic laws for instance, or the maximum temperature of takeaway coffee, or the threat of jail time for felonies.
My (non-US) country is closing state borders to protect the populace from other areas that have COVID infected people - that's protecting me from them. We also have regulations requiring the wearing of masks - that's protecting
We don't have a coordinated Federal response (Score:3, Informative)
There's also evidence that Jared Kushner [vanityfair.com] didn't bother with a federal testing plan because he thought the virus would only hurt his Father-In-Law's opponents.
Speaking of which, it's painfully clear Trump thought he could ignore it and it would go away. Problem being that you can't just fast talk your way out of a pandemic. It takes real leadership.
The reason why it's bad in America (Score:5, Insightful)
is because it requires the authorities to order people to do things for the greater good, such as wearing a mask, staying home and social-distancing.
In most other countries, people understand and comply. In the US, people bitch and moan about their constitutional rights and do whatever the hell they want.
Americans are notoriously bad at doing anything that isn't in their own immediate personal interest.
Re:The reason why it's bad in America (Score:4, Interesting)
My theory is that a lot of people in the US believe that they are so anti-authoritarian (note that I say "believe" and not "are") that even when confronted with facts from people who know what they are talking about, they will react negatively.
It's almost as if the idea of being anti-authoritarian has inverted itself, something which a real authoritarian can easily exploit.
Re:The reason why it's bad in America (Score:4, Informative)
Sweden has, at the time of this writing 5,747 deaths. Norway, its equal sized neighbor, has 256 deaths.
So, yes. Science still works, no matter what some particularly stupid Trumpsters may want to believe.
p.s. That "Sun" article points out that despite the opinions the 'Health Minister' has, it is still illegal to go out in public without a facemask. Oh, and that that is in conflict with just about every other medical expert on the topic, worldwide.
Re:The reason why it's bad in America (Score:5, Informative)
‘We see no point in wearing a face mask,’ Sweden’s top virus expert says
https://fortune.com/2020/07/29... [fortune.com]
Face masks are ‘NOT necessary’ and could even harm the fight against coronavirus, say Holland’s top scientists
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/... [thesun.co.uk]
According to what you said then those countries should be significantly worse off, right?
1. People still wash hands and keep their distance there
2. Sweden _is_ significantly worse off then the rest of Europe.
It's what we want (Score:3)
Americans are not willing to stay at home, either on the left or on the right, and when even doctors are saying that kind of thing, people are going to die.
Re:It's what we want (Score:4, Interesting)
1st because "the right thing" is exactly what is most often debated in the united states, as a protestant nation the idea of "en sola scritura" is expressed profoundly in the premise that freedom = the ability to decide for yourself what is "the right thing" then do what you choose. because interpreting scripture is a private matter.
2nd because there has been a substantial break down in our society of any trust in our institutions that are meant to inform and guide us. We profoundly distrust politicians ( one side of the isle the other or both). We significantly distrust the established news media ( they have earned it by skewing all things as left ( or sometimes right) as possible while ignoring facts. We distrust 'Science' because it has become for a certain percentage of people a religion unto itself that requires all to worship it's tenants and yet can give no true advice on 'what the right thing is'.
3rd given the second and light of the first, most people are just making stuff up as they go along and doing the best they can to be comfortable on the way.
Racist policies? (Score:2)
Racist policies that have endured since the days of colonization and slavery left Indigenous and Black Americans especially vulnerable to COVID19
Can anyone fill me in as to which policies these are?
Because of obesity, I suspect (Score:3, Insightful)
Obese people are a high risk group for Covid-19. The US is around (varies by source) the 12th most obese country on the planet. Most of the rest of the top 20 countries are small and/or islands.
Such Trolling (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
This post was a deliberately political jab at president Trump. Then these anti-masker types respond with the whole "it's not a big deal, blah blah blah" thing. None of that is germane to the question "why is the pandemic so bad in America?" A better and more relevant answer would be, there is a pattern of large bureaucracies failing to contain the pandemic. The real issue is why did 30+ years of preparation for a pandemic by multiple governments fail so badly?
This is a really good question, but I think your answer - large bureaucracies - is just wrong. South Korea, Taiwan and New Zealand will have proportionally large bureaucracies but have reacted very effectively. The difference is populist leaders (Johnson / Ortega / Modi / Trump / Bolsonaro) vs serious ones (Merkel / Adern / Moon). Note that this isn't a clear left/right divide, there are left and right wingers in both groups.
The populists went for simple solutions and clear (wrong) decisions. The serio
$CDN (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I can easily see Canada's reopening trend ending soon, and fully expect to see it slow. In Alberta, which is the most America-like of Canada's provinces, our partial reopening of businesses was followed by a jump in cases. My expectation that we will see targeted shutdowns in response to flare-ups by the end of September, after schools are back up and running. I would much rather see a slow and careful reopening with minimal outbreaks than a quick reopening that has to be stopped and reversed due to large o
read TFA (Score:4, Informative)
Read TFA, it is F-ing great.
That is all.
The Atlantic (Score:3)
We know Trump is incapable... (Score:5, Informative)
So why aren't the governors of the various states doing anything useful? Even Newsom in California. I don't know anyone that has been ticketed for not wearing a mask in public, despite the fact it's mandated in California. Cops have watched me walk across the street with no mask and not bothered to even say anything.
So when the local level authorities aren't actually trying to enforce the mandated safety orders, I have to wonder how much of this is on Trump?
I think we are American and all that entails. We are independent to a fault. We don't really trust our government or perhaps just parts of it. We won't accept in your face tracking, even if it could save your life. Even our Constitution and other laws are such that it's really hard to compel all of us to do anything.
Compare all that to a country like Japan and it's no wonder. The Japanese believed their emperor was practically God less then 100 years. You think they might of sort of trust their government and each other more then an American would?
In fact, I would say most countries have better family unit values and better community values. Most people in the world seem to have a larger sense of community then that of the average American.
That's why the pandemic is so bad in America. This site https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com] puts us at 8th worst country, per capita. So we aren't number #1 per capita.
P.S. Yes I wear a mask into public places but not when I walk around outside unless people are near by.
Well... is it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty much every major country has demonstrably bungled handling Covid-19.
Add to that the not very reliable (to downright false) data on deaths, well...
Suffice to say, maybe in a year or few the standard of data on the matter will be better.
After all, China (on the surface) has got off lightly, but according to personal contacts I have in China, a very large number of people (maybe around a half million) have died, and China havenâ(TM)t really slowed the spread of infection much at all.
Re: (Score:3)
Either you are lying or you are completely misinformed.
https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info]
Re: (Score:3)
The CDC site does say "Provisional death counts are based on death certificate data received and coded by the National Center for Health Statistics as of July 29, 2020. Death counts are delayed and may differ from other published sources"
But it is missing a really substantial trend. It's weird. It's easy to wave it off with "the CDC has been corrupted by Sharpie Man" but THA
Re: (Score:3)
That is weird how the graph he linked from the CDC website differs so much,
What you need is to read carefully the CDC site
So it's just a feature of this particular data set. The choice to create and use this particular graph is far bey
Re:Actually, it is over already (Score:4, Informative)
I thought that the White House was now requiring that all data be reported to HHS, and not the CDC (which is where it was going previously), and that this change was made a couple of weeks ago. At the time, it seemed oddly suspicious that they were requiring this change.
Re: (Score:2)
You are scared of the case numbers. The real truth is in the sad but indisputable body counts. The body counts are usually dispiriting, but in this case are actually good news.
Fortunately, most people are immune to the disease and recover quickly, or don't even know that they were sick. This 'new' virus isn't totally new. Most people were already exposed to close cousins of it.
Just go to the CDC web site and see for yourself.
A women just had a double lung transplant (Score:3)
People who will spend the rest of their lives short of breath because of permanent lung damage? Just another case.
People with motor impairment for months, possible (likely, the brain doesn't do a good job of "healing") after being sick? Just another case.
And on and on and on and on...
Re:Actually, it is over already (Score:4, Informative)
He quoted a chart that is based on data that inherently lags behind by two to three weeks because of the way that it is reported. In case it isn't obvious why that matters:
So as you can see, that apparent drop-off at the end of the graph is entirely an artifact of the amount of time it takes for coded death information to reach the CDC, and is not an indication that the deaths are actually decreasing. The CDC should be bull-whipped for making misleading charts like that. They should just leave off the data for the last three weeks or so on an ongoing basis, or show trend lines, or something.
Re:Actually, it is over already (Score:4, Informative)
The CDC found no such thing. A group of researchers in China did a survey of existing research (none of which includes the set of circumstances where masks are expected to provide a benefit), and then did some math on the results from those other research studies. Their report was merely made available through the CDC's website.
Your statement is equivalent to saying that Slashdot discovered that coronavirus can spread through the air in airplanes because I read a bunch of other people's journal articles about it spreading through the air in hospitals and summarized them in a comment.
Re: (Score:2)
Bingo! (Score:5, Informative)
And Here's the Ars Technica Article explaining why our response blows [arstechnica.com]
And Here's the Ars Technica Article explaining that the value of lives saved by shutdown > economic cost [arstechnica.com]
All quiet well researched. Ars has been poking whale sized holes in these sorts of arguments for months now.
Re:Actually, it is over already (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah. You keep telling that yourself. In the meantime, 1,100 US Americans die every day from Covid. I wonder when the death toll is big enough that people start taking this serious, it should be an interesting combination of a research topic for statistics and psychology.
Yes, at this point my compassion has been eliminated by my curiosity. The ability for denial is incredible in these people, it kinda makes sense that they are the most religious outside the middle east. I wonder how close to home it has to hit, I guess so far at least not enough people lost someone they love to Covid to take it serious.
We had about 160,000 dead US Americans so far, of roughly 330 millions that's less than 1 out of 2,000. It's likely that not a lot of people have lost a loved one to the disease yet, and even quite possible that a sizable portion doesn't know anyone who has it, despite over 4.6 million cases in the US (in total, including those that already died or recovered). It's gonna be interesting to see how much it takes for the general sentiment to flip.
On behalf of the world, and especially those interested in human psychology, I thank you for your great sacrifice for science.
Re:Actually, it is over already (Score:4)
Dude, seriously, 1200 people are dying every single day in your country from this. Up from 500 in June. Is this wishful thinking or already denial? I guess the next phase is now that you lash out against me, then try to bargain...
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Re: (Score:3)
Re:Actually, it is over already (Score:5, Informative)
source: http://91-divoc.com/pages/covi... [91-divoc.com]
The European Union with a population of 446 million is having 62 deaths per day, on average over the last week. 0.13 per million population.
Florida's rate is 62 times higher than the EU's adjusted for population.
Re: (Score:2)
In before the idiots who are going to claim they do more testing so of course they find more cases...
Re:Actually, it is over already (Score:4)
Actually being hit later is a major advantage in a pandemic. You get a lot more time to prepare. Italy was among the first to get hit hard, therefore its death rate is probably inflated because of that (lack of time to prepare). Florida has no excuse. They knew what was coming. They were even lucky not being hit before.
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Re:Actually, it is over already (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Ah, yes, nitpicking what the EU actually constitutes (UK, Turkey, ...)
It's not nitpicking to point out that neither the UK nor Turkey are in the EU any more than pointing out that Mexico and Canada are not a part of the USA. Must be the famous geography courses in US schools I've heard so much about...
The UK is still in the EU last I checked
You last checked in January?
but as I said, picking numbers based on geography is ludicrous
...and thus you decided to aggregate the EU (of course erroneously to boot), because you like to do ludicrous things?
whatever subset of Europe that may be
Yep, it's those famous geography courses alright.
Re:Actually, it is over already (Score:5, Informative)
New Jersey (1,792/million pop) - #1 overall
New York (1,686/million pop) - #2 overall
Massachusetts (1,256/million pop) - #3 overall
Connecticut (1,245/million pop)
Rhode Island (954/million pop)
Louisiana (871/million pop)
D.C. (832/million pop)
Michigan (648/million pop)
Illinois (611/million pop)
Delaware (603/million pop)
Mississippi (589/million pop)
Maryland (584/million pop)
Pennsylvania (571/million pop)
That's *thirteen* individual states in the top 20, and ALL of those numbers are still going UP, even where the day-to-day rate might be coming down (think about it). As it stands, the 20th soveriegn state in the world on the list is Bolivia on 276 deaths/million population; a further 14 US states are above that bar: Arizona (just above the US average), Indiana (just below), Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Colorado, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Ohio, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nevada.
Could Cuomo have done better? Almost certainly. But, if so, then there's no way he's the only US governor, or even that it's just the Democrat governors, that have completely screwed up their handling of the situation and could also have done better. At least Cuomo can claim his state (along with New Jersey) were the trial balloons for the US (albeit having failed to heed the warnings from Europe), but even allowing for that, what possible excuses can the rest of them offer?
Re: (Score:2)
It is clear that some people want to be afraid more than anything else.
Re: (Score:3)
You know what, if all the people who truly believe that this is just political nonsense would act in their own best interests and wear masks, keep their distance, etc., this whole thing would go away in about a month, or two at the most, and then it would be over before the election.
Instead, barring a sudden outbreak of common sense, this November, the rest of us — the people who are looking at the numbers and concluding that those people are out of their minds — will all be voting by mail, whi
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When the leadership explicitly does what every virus expert says should be done, then I think it's ok to hold them accountable.
Re: (Score:3)
Yup. Look at the graphs from European countries. They all look the same, whether they had lockdowns and masks or not.
The masks and distancing is just a way to placate the hoi polloi. To make them think we are doing something useful.
It is a simple, useless crutch.
blah de blah blah (Score:3, Insightful)